Nuclear Power, Part of an Energy Strategy — Except in New Jersey

Among the many topics NAM President and CEO John Engler covered in his October 13 speech to the Detroit Economic Club was the need for the United States to adopt a national energy strategy, a comprehensive, use-all-resources approach.

Nuclear power included…

We need a resurgent nuclear power industry in America. Manufacturers use a third of the nation’s electricity, and the Chevy Volt is going to require what? Even more electricity. Nuclear power is safe and will create thousands of jobs. We need to get started.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, Governor Corzine has announced a statewide energy strategy, setting high, very high, quite high goals in meeting this industrial state’s need for electricity through alternative energy sources, conservation and efficiency. We haven’t read the plan yet, but note these comments from Corzine’s news conference, as reported by Reuters:

New Jersey might also use more nuclear power but only if the waste could be safely disposed of, Corzine said. “I’m not opposed to nuclear power,” he said. “I’m opposed to doing it unsafely.”

You can usually interpret that rhetoric as: “I’m not opposed to nuclear power. I’m just opposed to any new plants being built.”

The green activists at the occasionally scientific Union of Concerned Scientists certainly read it that way, praising the New Jersey plan in a news release because it “promotes offshore wind energy and solar energy installation over fossil fuel and nuclear power plants.”

In other words, because it promotes sources that are not suited to produce the kind of baseload electricity demanded by an advanced industrial society.